For MU, ’77 is ever present
The Marquette Warriors were celebrating in their locker room minutes after winning the 1977 NCAA championship when coach Al McGuire gathered his team around him and said something both profound and prophetic.
“He said, ‘This championship, and what you accomplished tonight, will become bigger and bigger in your life as time goes on,’ ” said Jim Boylan, a starting guard on that team. “At that time, as a kid in your early 20s, you don’t understand the meaning of that.
“Fast forward 40 years later and those words really echo in your mind. Because, yes, it has gotten bigger over the years.”
Members of that team, now in their early
60s, were back in Milwaukee on Saturday as Marquette University paid tribute to its only NCAA championship team at halftime of its 93-84 loss to Wisconsin at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
One by one, the players walked onto the Al McGuire Court: Butch Lee, the smooth-as-silk guard with the deadly midrange jumper; Bo Ellis, the skinny forward from Chicago and the team’s heart and soul; sharp-elbowed Bill Neary, who did the dirty work inside; Craig Butrym, Ulice Payne, Mark Lavin.
Forty years ago, they were the toast of Milwaukee, a bunch of cocky kids led by a charismatic coach. The Warriors had talent. They had swagger and chemistry and a stubbornness about them that served them well come March.
After a one-point loss to Michigan in the regular-season finale, Marquette swept through the NCAA Tournament, beating Cincinnati, Kansas State, Wake Forest and UNC-Charlotte to reach the championship game.
Finally, on a rainy Monday night in Georgia, the Warriors beat North Carolina, 67-59, to win the title.
A teary-eyed McGuire said in his postgame television interview that he hoped Marquette fans would turn out at General Mitchell Airport to welcome home his team. Thousands flocked to the airport in the early morning hours Tuesday.
“It was wild,” Ellis said. “It took us almost two hours to get from the gate to baggage claim.”
McGuire retired after the championship run and died in 2001 at 72.
“It was the ultimate Hollywood ending,” said Boylan, now an assistant with the reigning NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers. “He got to ride off into the sunset with that championship. I believe Coach gave a lot to the game of basketball and in the end basketball gave something back to him.”
McGuire’s right-hand man and successor, Hank Raymonds, died in 2010. Rick Majerus, the young assistant who would become one of college basketball’s most successful coaches, died in 2012. Two players, starting center Jerome Whitehead and sharpshooting guard Gary Rosenberger, also are no longer with us.
“It’s a little sad because Jerome and Rosie aren’t here,” Ellis said. “Bernard (Toone) has been a little sick in New York City. Coach McGuire is gone. Coach Raymonds is gone. Rick is gone.”
Toone, Robert Byrd and Boylan were not able to attend the reunion.
Many of the players live in the Milwaukee area and see each other often. But it’s still special when they get together.
“In a lot of ways, it’s like we’ve never been apart,” Boylan said by phone. “We share a special bond. Even though there’s many, many years of separation, the moment you get in the room with those guys, there is a strong connection and things just come back. There’s a love, a camaraderie, that is just unique.”
Steve Wojciechowski, Marquette’s third-year coach, grew up on the East Coast and played at Duke. But it didn’t take him long to embrace MU’s rich basketball tradition or understand how important the 1976’77 team is to the university and to Milwaukee.
“There isn’t a day that goes by when somebody doesn’t bring up something about the national championship team, Coach McGuire or one of the players on that team,” Wojciechowski said. “That team, coaches and players really captured the hearts and the minds of people at Marquette, and rightly so.”
Wojciechowski invited Lee and Ellis to practice Friday.
“I’m sitting on the sideline and I’m saying, ‘Damn, Bo, it wasn’t that long ago we were out there doing layups and drills and wind sprints,’ ” said Lee, who flew in from his home in Puerto Rico.
Forty years go by in a flash. You can see those Warriors in your mind’s eye, though, with their avant-garde untucked jerseys. There’s McGuire, pacing the court, hair slicked back, working the officials. There’s Raymonds, sitting calmly with his trusty clipboard in hand. There’s Lee, launching floaters in the lane, and Neary, grabbing a rebound, elbows jutting out.
Ellis watches the game films from time to time, just so he can pick out his mother in the crowd, jumping up and down with Marquette fans.
“There’s no turning back,” he said quietly. “I lived that moment. That was then and this is now. It’s all history, and that’s the way life is.”